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About the Book

INTRODUCTION

It’s been said that we’re surrounded by images, and we are. When it comes to photography, the trick is to see the image and then capture it with a camera. I like to describe the process inside my head when I hunt down photos as “switching on.”

When I’m out and about without a camera, I avoid the anguish of not being able to record the perfect, serendipitous shot in front of me by “switching off,” and willfully trying not to see. However, once the shutterbug has bitten, “switching off” is futile. Photographer Walter De Mulder summed it up best: “Always seeing something, never seeing nothing, being photographer.”

As photographers we’re doomed to being forever on the prowl for that magic shot. We’re always seeing something. Because we’re also never seeing nothing, we can’t ignore what we see -- or our desperate need to record it.

Our cameras hang by straps from our necks like nooses. Our salvation rests in never seeing nothing. That’s what it means to be a photographer. That’s why I had to shoot the photographs in this book.

About the Author

After getting a Kodak Instamatic camera as a gift on his eighth birthday, photographer Dan Wagner has never looked back.
At the age of fifteen, he took first and second place in a New York City photography contest for high school students. After studying photography in college, he assisted top photographers in New York and Los Angeles for several years before opening his own studio.
Dan's editorial photography has been featured in leading magazines and newspapers. Over the years, he has shot major advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 clients. He has also taught photography classes at New York City's Fashion Institute of Technology.
He lives with his family in Huntington, New York.